Talk:Liepāja
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The following article is the biggest crap that I have read about Liepaja. When Liepaja became cultural and industrial center of the region name of the city was Libava. There is no information about Jews being murdered during WW2 by Latvian Waffen SS troops. There is no information about port, factories infrastructure that’s built by so called occupants. During Soviet time city wasn’t close, all people needed was passport to enter the city. This is another pathetic method to rewrite history by Latvian nationalists. If you have any questions in regards of my remarks, please contact me on atorgash@gmail.com
- Or, you could write it yourself instead of whining about it. Chris 02:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
- Ok, now there is information about this. Denis Tarasov (talk) 17:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Latvian nationalists or Russian nationalists/Soviet apologists?
The following article is the biggest crap that I have read about Liepaja. When Liepaja became cultural and industrial center of the region name of the city was Libava. There is no information about Jews being murdered during WW2 by Latvian Waffen SS troops. There is no information about port, factories infrastructure that’s built by so called occupants. During Soviet time city wasn’t close, all people needed was passport to enter the city. This is another pathetic method to rewrite history by Latvian nationalists. If you have any questions in regards of my remarks, please contact me on atorgash@gmail.com In 1941 Liepaja was among the first cities captured by Army Group North when Nazi Germany began war with Soviet Union. The local Jewish population, which numbered about 7,000 before the war, was virtuallly exterminated by German Nazis and Latvian collaborators. Most of the mass murder took place in the dunes of Škēde north of the city. Fewer than 30 Jews remained alive in Liepaja by the end of the war. Film footage of an Einsatzgruppen execution of local Jews was made at Liepaja (and is available at the link indicated [2]).
Or, you could write it yourself instead of whining about it. Chris 02:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Nice try - changed everything into its exact opposite. Your Comment and your manipulation of the article is the biggest crap that I have ever read about Liepaja! It is possible that during the so called "Russification" period, starting from the second half of the 19th century and lasting until 1917, "Libava" was the russificized version (or better: Russian "malapropism") of the German denomination "Libau" for the city. If someone made Liepaja a cultural and industrial center during that period, it's still the Baltic Germans of Courland and Liepaja that would have to be mentioned in first place. But I have read absolutely nothing about them in the current version of the article. Seems like Latvian and Russian nationalists and Soviet apologists go hand in hand in erasing the history of the Baltic Germans' 800-years-long regency of Courland and their primary contribution to the developement of the country until World War I. Their regency and benefit is a historic fact, no matter if the Baltic Germans had to recognize the King of Sweden, the King of Poland-Lithuania or the Russian Tsar as their highest sovereign. The baltic provinces were never under direct control of one of those latter powers. Things did not change until the already mentioned Russification period, which weakened the position of the Baltic Germans. The Baltic Germans were leaving the country after WWI in large numbers and were forced to leave the country entirely after the Soviet occupation of 1940.
Regarding the Soviet Occupation of Latvia in 1940 and its German "Liberation" in 1941, the following has to be stated: There is no information in the article of the wide-spread collaboration of Jews with the Soviet occupants' regime (according to Baltic and Polish sources). Immediately after or even simultaniously to advances of German forces into Soviet territory, outrages and massacres by local population against Jews or by Ukrainians against Poles etc. took place all along the Soviet western border. The Jews as a whole were regarded as Soviet collaborators and those feelings eventually mixed with older antisemitism. I don't want to justify those incidents, but it needs to be stated here that in other contexts of the 20th century, "retaliation" against accused collaborators, which can mean individuals, groups of people or whole peoples, even had been (and still is) praised by Soviet and western media! Anyhow, no matter what's your point of view about this issue, if you want to blame someone for these massacres, you will have to blame the local population and not the Germans or some ominous "Nazis" and their ominous-as-well "collaborators". The often heard claim that the SS organisation had instigated local population to outrage against Jews is discussed very controversial among serious historians and a final answer has still not been achieved. But even if it proved true, the question remains what effect such a instigation could have had on the locals, since they took action within shortest time after their "liberation" and therefore apparently didn't need to be instigated ... Another point are the Jewish losses of Liepaja, which sound very spectacular in the article. (Only 30 of 7000 left alive!) But lots of Jewish inhabitants escaped from their home towns together with withdrawing Red Army troops. Parts of them were then put into Soviet Gulag concentration camps! Lots of Jews were of course deported to ghettos and German concentration camps. And lots of Jews fled to the forests where they formated their own Partisan groups, with or without Soviet force. (Russia is a large country and the Germans were always far from controling their entire hinterland.) After the war, only very few Jews returned to their home towns in Eastern Europe. Instead they emigrated to Palestine, the USA, Western Europe or other places. What I want to say is that certainly a lot more than 30 Liepajaian Jews survived WWII.
A completely different subject is the case of the Waffen-SS. This elite combat troop recruited volunteers from almost any nation of Europe, among them also Latvians. Their common aim was to fight "Bolshevism", how the Soviet form of communism was then called. The recruiting of Latvians, however, did not start immediately - at least that's what I know. The Waffen-SS also formed special assault units (in German: Einsatzgruppen) that were engaged in the anti-partisan warfare. Official Soviet-era sources claim that the Soviet partisan army counted about 2 million combatants (nowadays they would probably be called "illegal combatants" in US terminology). Their task was to destroy supply, railway lines, etc. and to kill enemy personnel in the enemy's hinterland. They also surprised, attacked and massacred small groups of enemy soldiers. The partisans' brutal warfare, as well against their own civilian countrymen as against the enemy, was the reason for the corresponding increasing brutalization of the German occupation regime. If German or allied soldiers were killed in a certain place and the partisan perpetrators could not be caught, civilian hostages from nearby that place served as proxies for the partisans and were shot at a ratio of 1:2, 1:4, and occasionally even higher ratios. Soviet-era sources claim hundreds of thousands German and allied soldiers and personnel were killed by partisans. Although these large numbers are not realistic, estimations can be made of how much people might have been killed "for retaliation"; among them definitly lots of Jews, since a large share of Soviet partisans were Jewish. The shooting of proxy hostages was reasoned by the fact that partisans need to be supplied by the local population of a certain region and therefore those local population must have contact (or even does conspirate) with the partisans. But the local population had no choice, since the partisans of course just took what they wanted, if the peasant agreed or not. If he did not agree or even resisted their demands, he was killed by the partisans! And that's the mad thing about the whole partisan warfare and shooting of hostages: The civilian inhabitants of the german-"occupied" territories had to fear the partisans more than the Germans and their allies, a point that Stalin announced very publicily! If for example a Russian village, in the eyes of the partisans seemed to "collaborate" with or just being to friendly to the Germans, the whole village could have been "liquidated" by the partisans. What does all of that have to do with the "Einsatzgruppen"? Not very much, since the anti-partisan assault units were directly routing out and "liquidating" the partisans - not proxy hostages. As already mentioned, a large share of partisans were Jewish.
But the core problem of the above commentator seems to be a historic conscience shaped by US "History" TV Channel, Soviet apologists and certain lobby groups, which try to write or rewrite history since 60 years or so. This is best demonstrated with the link he places in the middle of the article, linking an article of the town Liepaja to an internet site of his - most probable - heart and soul issue. This site can only be described as utter pathological. It shows a video clip that is claimed to have been filmed by an (anonymous?) German soldier, translating Einsatzgruppe with "mobile killing unit"! (I won't comment on that!) Low quality anti-german atrocity stuff like this was (and often still is) produced in large numbers by Soviet, Polish, Czech and other nationalities' producers, often with German POWs and deported civilians as "performers". Countries that are primarily responsible for the expulsion of 19 million ethnic Germans from Eastern Germany and Eastern Europe (including Russia) of whom app. 3 million were murdered or died of starvation. A historic event without comparison in the history of Europe, of which most people will never have heard somthing about. And all of these countries are very much interested (and therin supported by their former western allies) that it stays that way.
[edit] Remove picture
On a more constructive note - I suggest to remove the historic map of the city. It doesn't really contribute to the article and has no informative value. What's with the red and yellow patches anyway? Either a more up to date map should be used or no map at all, otherwise it just makes the article look scrappy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TomMc (talk • contribs) 23:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
- It ilustarates history section, shows what the city used to be -- Xil...sist! 23:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
- It's hard to make anything out of it in my opinion. It looks a bit out of context. It clearly was supposed to illustrate something else or there wouldn't be this strange colouring. And there are no street names or intelligible district names, not to mention the fact that several historical layers are overlaping showing both the original river and the city streets that were later built over it. My point is that this picture is not the best one to illustrate what the city looks like or looked like before, it's just confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TomMc (talk • contribs) 01:09, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
- Do as you wish, though I don't think it disrupts anything. And please sign your coments ---- Xil...sist! 15:26, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Geography
I have inserted the Liepāja's neighbourhoods template to the Geography section of the article. You may remove it to your discretion if it feels inappropriate. I must say though, that I feel the Russian versions of the neighbourhoods being inappropriate since this is the English language Wikipedia. Philaweb T 15:12, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
